


He never stopped

by Zoesiapie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fremione - Freeform, Laughter, there's something cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28588836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoesiapie/pseuds/Zoesiapie
Summary: "Two minutes." He whispered in her ear, amused."Two minutes, what?""That's how long I'm going to use to convince you to come away with me" he explained to her, then casting his gaze to the others sitting not far away: they seemed distant instead, as Fred's breath warming her neck and moving the world created a universe solely for the two of them.That many? She only thought about it, blushing slightly on her cheeks, "Two minutes" she simply said, agreeing with him.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Fred Weasley
Kudos: 25





	He never stopped

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Non smise mai](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/738726) by Sia_. 



She had watched him for so many years with skepticism, that now the idea of understanding him seemed crazy, the unhealthy idea that they weren't so different after all, she and Fred.

There were still barriers between them, but Hermione seemed to have convinced herself that they weren't so different: she'd had to deal with a lot more than that, like the snooty looks of her elementary school friends, her mother's frightened expression before sending her away from home, the haughty voices of the others who called her haughty. Rumors, she thought naively, that had never stopped circulating. Even he, who was so similar now, had gone around smearing his lips with all sorts of nicknames and epithets, making her think for a long time that she could be nothing more than a boring prefect-perfect.

He started calling her Hermione one night - she painted that moment as one of the few memories she should never have lost.

"What are you doing out at this hour?" She admonished him, planting herself in the middle of the hallway.  
She hunted her gaze into the eyes of the twin, who had stopped his walk and was catching his breath, "The usual" he confessed to her, tilting his head slightly: the moonlight on his face shifted, revealing a half-smile that was mischievous.  
"How am I supposed to interpret that?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms over her chest.  
"That depends on whether you're asking me as Prefect or Hermione."  
"Would it change anything?"  
"I'd like to think so."

She stayed Hermione, never going back to being Prefect. She stayed Hermione and he became Fred: she soon realized that it wasn't all that difficult to tell him apart from his twin because there were some tentative differences that made it clear that they were two different individuals, no matter how much they tried to be identical.

Fred was suddenly certainty and security, destroying every day the image of rogue she had made of him. No, he wasn't really as hopeless as she always told him, but he was someone who filled the universe with hope: he never stopped believing that the world could be better than this. He enchanted with simple magic tricks, broke the silence with a laugh that tasted of life, filled the air with cut grass and gunpowder.

He called her Hermione and it took too little to become indelible.

"Two minutes." he whispered in her ear, amused.

"Two minutes, what?"

"That's how long I'm going to use to convince you to come away with me" he explained to her, then casting his gaze to the others sitting not far away: they seemed distant instead, as Fred's breath warming her neck and moving the world created a universe solely for the two of them.  
 _That many?_ She only thought about it, blushing slightly on her cheeks, "Two minutes" she simply said, agreeing with him.

Fred never stopped being too much - too impulsive, too exuberant, too passionate, too determined. He lived on that, always returning to tinge his days with a mixture of excesses that often devolved into pranks, escapes, and punishments. Who else, in the end, would work so hard to hear a laugh? Who else, in the end, would always try to bring out the best in people?

He often suggested it to her, to come with him to color the world: an invitation smeared with an evil smile, an invitation she always declined with a shake of her head. There were walls separating them that they would never tear down, no matter what.

"Will you ever give in?" he asked her, wavering at the threshold of the secret passage.  
"Will I ever give in?" she asked back, smearing the almost silent atmosphere with a new color.  
He smiled amusedly at her, shaking his head, "I'll pick you up at the Library in a few hours" he said only, before following George into the corridor. He never found out that this comment stained Hermione's cheeks with a faint blush: he had taken the right to choose for her, without knowing that, in the end, it was exactly what the witch wanted. That it was too much even for her.

She and Fred built and destroyed walls every day, overnight they built walls and leveled hills. They stopped and went back to being each time: they understood how easy it was to find themselves in a common look, in a common thought, so much so that as the barriers between them diminished, they began to build one to protect themselves from others. They began to build a place that was theirs alone, a place that tasted of broken rules, a place that tasted of loud laughter, a place that tasted of vibrant reddish colors. A place where Hermione's fingers began to brush against him more than usual, where Fred's lips moved ever so slightly toward her mouth. It began with a shy kiss at the base of the dormitory stairs: it undid the tiredness and fueled the desire to be too much together.

"You think so too, don't you?" she asked, interrupting both her reading and Fred's work.  
It was a placid feeling, the one where they were so right, the one where the day only took on meaning if they could see each other for at least five minutes, the one where they had become everything without ever having been anything.  
He smiled at her, lowering the flame under the cauldron, "It would be hard to think of anything else."

Together it took on the nuance of so many things: it was spending the night in the Room of Requirement, it was secretly looking for each other in the Common Room, it was writing to each other every so often, it was finding each other at the end of summer, it was learning to love for the first time. Fred confessed to her that it was like flying, and he dragged her on the broom to bring her to graze the atmosphere with her fingers as he held her to him - back to chest, the twin's heart had never been so loud, not even when they had made love in the Prefects' bathroom. Together became a bit about trying to understand each other and appreciate each other's differences. Together was also choosing to let go.

"I'm in no hurry, I'll wait for you," he told her, moving a strand of hair behind her ear, "I know you'll be back."  
She kissed him, dipping her fingers into his reddish hair: she clung to that last contact as if she had to breathe into it with Fred's lips.  
It was also why she did everything she could to get back to him.  
It was also why she clung to his waist with her teeth.  
It was also why she foolishly thought she was in no hurry.

The ugliness of a whole came only when the whole stopped existing - what had gone never came back, and the world ceased irrevocably to turn. No one would have come to soil her soul with a rainbow, no one would have lifted her up: she remained hunched over, her fingers brushing the grains of dust on the floor of a Common Room that had witnessed many other gazes. Free of tears, full of jest and love.  
She remained bent over Fred's body, finally clasping her hands on his sweater: she tried to shake him, tried to call him through her sobs, even tried to make him laugh - maybe if she finally gave in, he would come back to her. He didn't come back, she could tell by the expression painted on George's face, she could tell by Molly's gasps, she could tell by the desperate hug Ginny exchanged with Harry.

She realized that she had come to the end, made of a barrier too great to overcome.

Only Hermione remained.

Fred never stopped being too much - too prickly, too easy to love, too transparent, too good. He never stopped coming back to her every now and then in her thoughts, tinging them with the memory of a mischief-maker who one day ends up falling in love with his worst enemy.

He never stopped giving her a reason to keep living, despite everything: she promised herself that she would believe the world could be better in hir place.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This story is a translation, something I'm not so good at. If there are any errors, please let me know ❤.
> 
> I haven't written about the healthy angst in a while, it's always devastating. Precisely, I find it unfair that Fred has to die, but every now and then I get to thinking about what it would be like if and the prompts they left me with didn't give me a chance. It hurts, that's what I think, but I'm also glad I tried, regardless. I caught a bit of a break, I admit: I have so many tracks on my hands, I ended up making a soup of them. I find myself once again hoping that I didn't dare a little too much and fail: I feel like I've overstepped my bounds.  
> I spend the last line for those of you who made it down here, thanking you from the bottom of my heart. I hope my words have reached you,  
> Zoesiapie ❤


End file.
